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By David Tuller, DrPH I am not sure what is going on at BMJ and why editors there seem incapable of acknowledging their flawed decision-making when it comes to two papers that should never have been accepted for publication. One violated BMJ€™s policy that all trials must be properly prospectively registered, with no participants recruited …

Trial By Error: A Letter to Health Officials About BMJ’s Lax Editorial Standards Read More »

By David Tuller, DrPH I have been trying to convince editors at two BMJ journals to take responsibility for poor decisions. Despite serious nudging and prodding, I have been unsuccessful. The two papers I have criticized as being fraught with methodological and/or ethical missteps are these: Clinical and cost-effectiveness of the Lightning Process in addition …

Trial By Error: My Letter to MP Monaghan About BMJ Studies Read More »

All life forms on Earth harbor an array of genetic parasites, including viruses, plasmids, and transposons. Unfortunately, if cells could reduce their uptake of these elements, they would suffer as the entry of beneficial genes would be impaired (link to paper). In other words, genetic parasites are unavoidable.

By David Tuller, DrPH When the PACE trial was published in early 2011, my New York Times editor sent it to me, along with the press release. As a non-staff contributor to the Times, I had started covering the debate over the mouse retrovirus hypothesis and science, but I’d heard nothing about anything called PACE …

Trial By Error: My 2011 NY Times Exchange With the PACE PIs Read More »

By David Tuller, DrPH It’s been almost a year since the CDC removed its recommendations for GET and CBT as treatments for ME/CFS (or CFS, or ME, or CFS/ME, or even SEID or whatever else one calls this illness or cluster of illnesses). When questioned about the decision, the agency explained that people had misunderstood …

Trial By Error: More on the CDC; Reader’s Digest; and BBC’s Newsbeat Read More »

By David Tuller, DrPH Last year, BMJ Open published a paper called Randomised controlled trial of online continuing education for health professionals to improve the management of chronic fatigue syndrome: a study protocol. The seven authors, all affiliated with the University of New South Wales in Sydney, included Professor Andrew Lloyd, the infectious disease expert …

Trial By Error: Australia’s Online GET/CBT Education Program Read More »